Marc Myers writes daily on jazz legends and legendary jazz recordings

June 2010

June 30, 2010

At the end of each quarter, I round up my favorite quotes from
my interviews over the last three months. This feature is meant to give you a taste of what you might have missed in one convenient post. For others, it's a reminder of how great these musicians are or were. For the full interviews, please scroll down the right-hand column to "JazzWax Interviews." Artists are alphabetized by first names:

Nancy Wilson on her rapid rise in 1959: "Within five months
of arriving in New York to accomplish a specific set
of goals, they had all been reached. John Levy was representing me and
Capitol Records had signed me to a contract. In December, I recorded my
first Capitol album, Like in Love."

Nancy Wilson on how she refers to herself: "I just tell people I’m a song stylist. A
song stylist allows me the freedom to sing anything I
want."

Nancy Wilson on why she can't teach singing: "Because I’m of the opinion that it
shouldn’t matter to you what I think as a teacher. It’s what you think as a singer. Are you doing
what you think you should be doing? That’s far more important than me
telling you what you should be doing. It’s very important that you know
who you are first."

Nancy Wilson on recording for Capitol: "I would pick the songs with John
[Levy] and Dave [Cavanaugh]. Then I’d hear the chart for the first time
at 8 pm on a Wednesday night or whenever we’d record. The band would
run it down. That would be the first time I heard how it would sound.
Then we’d record three songs a night over three days."

Nancy Wilson on her Capitol albums today: "It kind of gets on my nerves when I go to someone’s house and they think
they’re
doing me a favor by playing my records for me. I have all that music in my head. I don't have to hear it again. I know
the charts. I can hear them playing and me singing. I prefer to listen to books more than music. And I read. I’m more of a
reader and a listener of books."

Nancy Wilson on her 1960s TV appearances and integration: "I was trying to pull audiences together, to make people see
that harmony wasn’t that hard, that being black or white made
no difference. My message was about artistry, and my audiences were
made up of people. I had no idea who was in the camera lens or in a
darkened club. They were just people who wanted me to do my best. I was
completely comfortable, and they became comfortable, too. Music can do
that. It can change the way people feel and think."

Buddy Collette on the impact of unifying the white and black Los Angeles musicians' union locals in 1953: "Well, you
learned pretty fast who could play and who couldn’t—white or
black [laughs]. You now had a chance to know what
all musicians played like and who could handle what and who couldn't. I
had been the first black musician hired by a television studio in 1948,
so I saw first-hand that the selection of talent for studios wasn't
always based on ability."

Buddy Collette on the start of the Chico Hamilton Quintet's sound: "Everyone got in their place on stage. Then Chico started playing, and
Fred Katz finally snapped out of playing the solo cello. But Fred couldn't get to the piano fast
enough. We were all in place and starting to play. So Fred started
bowing something
and I played something on the flute. We didn’t have a pianist but we did
have a guitar player in Jim Hall that no one can beat. When Fred played
the piano, we couldn’t really hear him anyway. As we played, Jim left
space for the cello. That’s why the group’s sound was no one’s idea. It
just happened by accident, as a prank that turned into a sound we all
dug immediately."

Bill Holman on conducting the Count Basie band on his arrangements for I Told You So: "The band had a tough time with most of the charts. All seemed very logical to me, but for
many of the guys, it was the first time they had seen any of my writing. So the charts were a little strange for them. Finally Basie said, 'This guy has written a masterpiece and it’s up to us to execute it.' That helped. Basie knew how to speak to his band with authority. I was trying to get them in that direction but I didn’t know the right words."

Hal McKusick on his favorite track from Cross-Section Saxes: "George Russell’s [pictured] End of a Love Affair. I
love the mood of it. The
arrangement has this certain restlessness, too.
It was a very East Coast sound, meaning you hear the energy
and sophistication of the city—the close interaction of people, the
hurrying, the ambition. That's how the musicians felt. Each of us was
striving to break new ground. It was an exciting, experimental time for
jazz, and that was reflected in the music."

Nat Hentoff on the jazz musician who taught him an especially
valuable writing lesson: "I think Ben Webster. At
the time, in the late 1940s, he was touring and
clubs wouldn’t pay the
additional cost for his working rhythm section. So Ben had to make do with the
musicians he could find in the cities where he played. In Boston, he
found he couldn’t lift up the quality of the trio with his playing. He
was sitting at the bar on a break when I spoke to him and pointed this
out. Ben said, 'You know, kid, if the rhythm section isn’t happening,
you go for yourself.' ”

Dick Collins on meeting Al Cohn for the first time: "Trumpeter
Al Porcino introduced us. I remember the
three of us were standing together. Al Cohn
turned to me and said, 'That’s Cohn, without an ‘e’ [laughs].
That’s pure Al. I mean, who would even bother to say that? Al, that’s
who."

Dick Collins on Les Brown: "As a trumpet player, Les wanted you to play
staccato all night long. If you didn’t, you’d hear him bark, 'Short!
Short!' He always wanted the trumpets to be crisp, which wasn't
necessarily a natural or warm feel. The guys would come off the stand
mimicking Les by saying to each other, 'Short! Short!' "

David Amram on Bobby Jaspar: "Bobby had wonderful eyes that talked. You looked in his eyes and you
knew you were in the presence of
someone that you
wanted to know. And the more you talked to him, the more you realized
you already knew him and that he knew you. He was like a ship—10% of
Bobby was showing above the water, and below the surface was the other
90% that you couldn't see."

Johnny Mandel on Tony Bennett: "I love The Movie Song Album. We
did a good version of The Shadow of Your Smile and Emily.
Tony always sings the definitive version of every song I write.
His interpretations are always the best. He comes to the territory,
stakes his turf and winds up owning the song."

Laurie Pepper on Art Pepper's health problems in the late 1970s: "Art
had this
really monstrous hiatal hernia. His belly would bulge out, so
he had to wear a corset when he played to keep everything in. It
happened to him while he was attempting a comeback with Buddy Rich in
the late 1960s.
We suspected it was a result of his girlfriend at the time constantly
sucker punching him in the stomach."

Gene Lees on Bill Evans' Waltz for Debby, for which Gene wrote the lyrics: "The only version I ever really liked was by Ed Ames."

Herb Geller on visiting Stan Getz in the late 1940s: "I went to visit Stan in West Hollywood for
three
hours of lessons. Stan
asked me, 'Who’s your favorite tenor
saxophonist?' I said, 'I listen to Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Don
Byas.' Stan said, 'OK, wrong. Lester Young is the guy. This is how he
sounds.' And then he played for me, sounding like Lester [pictured]. I
had heard Lester, but I hadn’t been enthralled."

Herb Geller on Tony Scott: "Charlie Parker and
Tony started the first tune. Tony insisted on playing
the
first jazz chorus before Parker. Parker just smiled and stopped,
letting Tony play for 10 minutes. Tony played a lot of dull nonsense.
Then it was Parker’s turn, and he played beautiful music. You couldn’t
humiliate Tony [laughs]."

Herb Geller on Art Pepper: "Art was an impossible person.
He was
mixed up with drugs and had a big complex about Charlie Parker.
What Art was really trying to do was play the alto like Zoot Sims played
tenor."

Herb Geller on his wife Lorraine Geller's sudden death in 1958: "When our daughter Lisa was born, her skin didn’t form on one of her legs and there
was trouble with her foot. She had
to stay in the hospital for six weeks
until the skin grew. I was assured that
Lisa's treatment would be covered by our health insurance plan. But the
insurance company refused to cover her extended stay and treatments.
The hospital bill broke us and took
every cent we had, including a life insurance policy I resigned to come
up with the cash for the hospital payments. With her asthma, Lorraine had a slow recovery after
Lisa's birth. The doctors advised her not to work for about a year and
to just take care of our daughter. Then Lorraine got a call
to accompany singer Kay Starr for $500 a week. Lorraine had rested for
months and Lisa was already 1 year old. So Lorraine went to work.
One day, in mid-October 1958, my mother
called from L.A. She
said, “Herb, Lorraine died.” The cause was pulmonary edema, which is
what happens when the lungs fill with fluid, leading to a shortness of
breath. Add a terrible asthma attack on top of that and you have a
disaster."

Lou Donaldson on the start of hard bop:"A Night at Birdland was probably the greatest live jazz
recording ever made. But it wasn't a Jazz Messengers date nor was Art
the leader. Art
already had a band in
Brooklyn
that he called the Jazz Messengers. The quintet we had a Birdland was a
studio band that Blue Note had put together. It wasn't Blakey's. It was
just a recording band."

Lou Donaldson on what set him apart from everyone else in the early 1950s: "I wasn’t a junkie. And the sound on my
horn was a little better than most other guys. I always prided myself on
my tone."

Lou Donaldson on West Coast jazz:"Our thing was the
opposite of jazz on the West
Coast. We consciously tried to do everything that they didn’t do. We tried
to swing hard, not cool. They had a light touch to their music. We had a
heavy touch, with a swinging feel underneath. We knew that creating a
contrast was going to be the only way to stand out."

Stanley Kay [pictured] on Buddy Rich: "Buddy had a temper that would simmer and simmer and then
explode. When
I’d sit next to him at New York's
Paramount Theater in the late 1940s, I could tell when that pot was
boiling. Buddy always liked to put his left foot on one of the three
legs of the hi-hat stand. Not the pedal—one of the three metal legs.
After he’d play for a little he’d move to the pedal. I knew
Buddy was getting into it when his foot wasn’t on one of those legs. So
I’d reach over and put his foot on the leg, which would make him laugh
and settle him down."

Tina Maini on her late father, Joe Maini: "My father picked up
the pistol and started telling a joke. He waved the
gun around, unaware it was loaded, and the gun went off accidentally. The bullet cut just under his
ear and across the back of his neck through his spine. If that bullet
had been just a millimeter off, he would have lived. His death had nothing to do with Russian roulette."

Neal Spritz on his late father, Harvey Lavine [pictured]: "Al Cohn [pictured] named my dad 'The Goof' for being absentminded.
But
what Al probably didn’t know, nor did anyone else, are the battles my
dad had to endure during World War II and how lucky he was to have made
it home alive."

John Bunch on Maynard Ferguson: "One night Maynard invited the band to his apartment on the Upper West Side
to a party before going to work at Birdland, our regular gig. But later, when
we got to the club, it turned out Maynard had
forgotten his mouthpiece back
at his place. One of the guys threw him a mouthpiece and said, 'Try this one.'
Most trumpet players would be uptight about that. They’re sensitive
about using only their own mouthpieces. But Maynard had no choice. He
just popped it into his horn and played the exact same way." [Photo of John Bunch by Brian Young]

Frank D'Rone on Nat King Cole: "Nat said the demo of Mona Lisa that he had been given originally
was done uptempo and bouncy. He played the piano
and sang the way the demo sounded. Then he slowed it way down to show
me how he had
made it a love song. As he's telling me this, I’m saying
to myself, 'No one’s ever going to believe me.' "

Frank D'Rone, looking back on his singing career: "Sometimes I wonder 'what
if.' But I always wind up
realizing that I’m actually happy I didn’t become a big star. I did it
the way I wanted. I never got into drugs. I never got into booze. I’ve
had a happy, wonderful life. [Pause] I didn’t become a big star
or anything, but I’ve had a star’s career."

June 29, 2010

After my posts on Arnett Cobb and
Lou Donaldson, I found myself with a severe craving for sax-organ combo tracks. So I started running through my library of reed and Hammond B3 albums trying to piece together a Top 10 list of favorites. [Pictured: Brother Jack McDuff]

Halfway through, I realized the task was impossible. You can't possibly narrow this genre to 10. The grooves are different from album to album and so tasty in a range of ways. With that said, here are 10 selections (with artists, original albums and years) to get us started in the Comments section:

The Honeydripper—Jack McDuff with Jimmy Forrest (The
Honeydripper, 1961)

June 28, 2010

Tenor saxophonist and arranger-composer Al Cohn wrote The Goof and I in late 1946 or early 1947. The title of the bebop melody with I Got Rhythm sensibilities and On Moonlight Bay overtones was named for baritone saxophonist Harvey Lavine [pictured], who Cohn coined "The Goof" for being absentminded. But there were reasons why Lavine was forgetful.

I asked Neal Spritz and Carrie Lavine to kindly shed light on their late father and the song's name. Neal wrote the following:

"Despite many spelling errors in liner notes and discographies, my father Harvey’s last name was
spelled Lavine and pronounced LAH-vine. Al Cohn gave him the nickname 'The Goof' in 1946.

"My dad did forget a lot of things and was routinely late for appointments. My mom would typically get annoyed and ask, 'Where’s the Goof?' But my mom loved my dad, and everything was fine once he finally arrived.

"When my dad was growing up, he loved his mother very much. But she died when he was 14 years old and he wound up being raised by his mother’s sister. She loved Harvey as much as his mother had, and he called her 'mother.' She was a good woman who always took care of him, pushing him to play the saxophone. She also wanted Harvey to wear the best clothes, and he had exceptional taste in clothing because of her.

"Al Cohn [pictured] named my dad 'The Goof' for being
absentminded. But what Al probably didn’t know, nor did anyone else, are the battles my dad had to endure during World War II and how lucky he was to have made it home alive. I’m sure his ordeals during the war helped him see things simply afterward and made what was difficult appear relatively easy by comparison.

"During the war, Harvey fought in five major battles but always had a knack for feeling at ease. He said his
relaxed view was a result of knowing that the 87th Infantry was led by General George Patton. Wishful thinking, I’m sure, when you’re in the middle of a war at 20 years of age. I don’t know if the reason he made it back alive was because of Patton, but he did make it home. [Pictured: 87th Infantry Division shoulder sleeve insignia]

"During the war, Harvey endured enormous punishment
and said that the heavy artillery was forever pounding in his ears and head. He always had a bazooka resting on his shoulder, and constantly waiting for the helmet tap to pull the trigger.

"The bazooka was a lot louder than a rifle, and each time he pulled the trigger he had to embrace it to make sure the weapon did not fall off his shoulder. I think that is why my dad had forearms like Popeye. He was a very powerful man. After going through all of this, it’s a wonder he could still hear and play that baritone sax.

"Ironically, my dad wasn’t supposed to see action during the war. After he was inducted, he played music
and entertained the troops in an army band. But the needs in Europe were such that he was shifted to the infantry. He told us that he had the most trouble at the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes Forest in 1944 and 1945. He said the temperature was so cold it reached 50 below. [Pictured: Members of the 87th Infantry in the Ardennes Forest]

"During the battle, my dad said, he had to make the biggest decision of his life. His feet had become so badly frostbitten that the medics told him they had to
amputate them to save his life. My dad was in bad shape but he stopped them, saying he’d rather do what he could with frostbitten feet than lose them. When they insisted, my father lost his famous cool and the medics backed off.

"I’m sure my father wasn’t pleasant to the medics, but whatever he said worked. He made it back to Brooklyn with his two feet intact. Eventually, his feet healed. All he had to do was adjust to civilian life and get back into the music.

"But that task was not easy for him. He was shell-shocked and needed rest, to forget the two years of
hell he went through. He had problems making the adjustment to civilian life, particularly with his bouts of battle flashbacks, sending him into a kind of dreamland.

"With his struggles to get beyond the battlefields of Europe where he had faced the constant threat of death, my father became forgetful. But he never lost his relaxed cool. The things that most people think are important weren’t particularly important to my dad.

"When he was 22 years old, he was sitting in his living room and his aunt said to him, 'Harvey, I heard Buddy
Rich is looking for a baritone player. Why don’t you go and audition for him?' My dad said to himself, 'How bad could that be? I won’t be getting shot at and it won’t be 50 degrees below zero outside. Why not?'

"So my dad went to the audition and got the job. After all he had been through, my dad was still good enough to play in such a great band, with that great sax section. He loved all those guys and always talked about Zoot Sims and Al Cohn as though they were family members.

"My dad told me that no one could play the drums like Buddy. But admiring anyone else except Buddy out loud could get you in trouble. My dad said when the
band was in Chicago on the bus at around 3 a.m., with the temperature outside about 10 below, he and a band-mate were discussing Max Roach and how great he played the drums. Somehow Buddy heard them and flipped out, throwing them both off the bus. Harvey had to rejoin them later at the gig. [Pictured: Harvey Lavine in Buddy Rich's band in 1948]

"My dad taught my sister and me that no matter what, stay cool and never worry. He always had a knack of saying just the right thing. And if anybody knew about staying cool, it was my dad. He always kept a cool head through good times and bad."

JazzWax tracks: Though Al Cohn named The Goof and I for Harvey Lavine, the first recording of the song was in January
1947 by Red Rodney's Be-Boppers, which featured Rodney (tp), Allen Eager (ts), Serge Chaloff (bar), Al Haig (p), Chubby Jackson (b), Tiny Kahn (drums). You'll find this recording here.

The song was recorded again live on the radio in March 1947 by Georgie
Auld and Red Rodney. This version exists only on an LP. The following month, Allen Eager (ts) Serge Chaloff (bar) Jimmy Johnson (b) and Buddy Rich (d) recorded the song at an informal session. You'll find it on Allen Eager: In The Land of Oo-Bla-Dee (1947-53) here.

Buddy Rich with Harvey Lavine on baritone sax recorded the song live in October 1947. You can
find it at iTunes, on the album Buddy Rich: The Ultimate Collection. The version by Woody Herman that put the song on the map can be found on Blowin' Up a Storm: Columbia Years 1945-47.

June 27, 2010

Benny Powell (1930-2010), a trombonist with a commanding,
smooth sound who began his recording career in Lionel Hampton's r&b orchestra of 1949 and then spent 12 critical years starting in 1951 with Count Basie's "New Testament" band, died yesterday at New York's Roosevelt Hospital while recuperating following spinal surgery. He was 80. [Photo of Benny Powell by Ed Berger]

Benny was a low-key, humble musician who viewed all of his
experiences with Basie and other jazz greats matter-of-factly. But Benny knew full well the flavor and dynamic he added to any band and small ensemble. Benny's most famous solo was his straight-ahead reading on Count Basie's 1955 recording of April in Paris, a date that Benny told me didn't recall being any more remarkable than all of the others.

Benny's style wasn't flamboyant or loud. Instead, his trombone had a firm conversational sound—direct and tasteful rather than independent and rambunctious. The personality he sought
for his horn was one that blended in, adding an understated, soft flavor to groups. Benny wasn't a soloist along the lines of other trombonists, but he knew that the prettier and more directly he played, the more the listener would lean forward to hear what he had to say on the instrument. [Photo of Benny Powell by Ed Berger]

When I interviewed Benny in December 2008, he talked about the Basie band's trombone section:

JazzWax: Did the trombonists in the Basie band get along?Benny Powell:
Oh, yes. We were like stepchildren because we didn’t get the first solos. After the trumpet players finished, the
tenor saxophonists would get a shot and then the drummer. Then maybe
we’d have eight bars. We felt we didn’t get our just props. We stuck
together as a result.

Whenever I called Benny, he was always jovial, charming and
eager to answer questions about his experiences. In fact, we spoke as recently as four weeks ago for a liner notes project I was working on.

One of my favorite times on the phone with Benny was viewing YouTube clips together of him
playing in Lionel Hampton's band. As we watched the same clip on each end of the phone, Benny reminisced about the band and the musicians. The one who stood out most during our conversation was alto saxophonist Bobby Plater [pictured], who became a Basie arranger.

At one point, as we watched the Hampton clip, Benny said, "Wow, that was some band. I learned everything I needed to know about music, rhythm and phrasing in those two years with Hamp."

You'll find Benny on the following 1950s recordings:

Complete Count Basie Verve Fifties Studio Recordings
(Mosaic).

Trombones Featuring Frank Wess (Savoy)

The Complete Tony Scott (RCA)

The Magnificent Thad Jones, Vol. 3 (Blue Note)

Donald Byrd/Gigi Gryce's Jazz Lab (Columbia)

Complete Atomic Basie (Roulette)

Nat King Cole: Welcome to the Club (Capitol)

I'm going to miss hearing Benny's voice on the other end of the line. This has always been my favorite clip of Benny, recorded a few years ago with saxophonist TK Blue...

Joe Maini. Following my post on alto saxophonist Joe Maini and daughter Tina Maini's
heartfelt recollections of her father and his tragic death, Tina sent along the following email...

"I shared my JazzWax reflections about Joe with my Aunt Elsie, dad's sister. Here's what she wrote back: 'My dear Tina, I am so proud and appreciative of your 'telling the true story' of your Dad, my brother. Yes, it was a difficult time, and how excited and happy your Dad would be for your tremendous effort to speak for all his friends and family. Thanks so much. I love you, Aunt Elsie."

Here's Joe Maini on alto sax (all the way to the left) as part of a Buddy Rich-led stage band in a nightclub scene from Jerry Lewis' Visit to a Small Planet (1960). The clip will fast-forward automatically to the music and dance scene...

Frankly Jazz. Jazz musician Bill Kirchner wrote last week to alert readers to a gold mine of YouTube clips of Frankly Jazz, a West Coast TV show hosted by Frank Evans in the early 1960s. Here's one example, featuring alto saxophonist Bud Shank and pianist Clare Fischer. For more clips from this show, go to YouTube and type in "Frankly Jazz"...

CD discoveries of the week. Pianist Herbie Hancock has just released The Imagine Project, a follow-up to his Grammy-
winning River: The Joni Letters. Like Hancock's exploration of Joni Mitchell's femme-folk works, this new CD forms a fascinating bridge between jazz, pop, soul and folk-rock. By envisioning a safe house where all forms of music can intermingle freely and find common ground, Hancock has managed to smarten up contemporary works without losing the material's original intent and edge.

What makes this album special is the new form of music that
emerges. Here you have jazz interacting with rock-oriented music and artists without taking a back seat to the genre. Hancock's jazz piano serves as an equal partner here, bonding the music's spirit and adding a heightened sense of drama, mood and sophistication.

One of the album's many highlights is A Change Is Gonna Come, featuring James Morrison. This is jazz and soul, not
jazz-soul, in which Morrison's rich voice shares center stage with an extended piano solo by Hancock.

This isn't a tribute album but a revisionist work with a whole new outcome, much in the way sand heated produces glass. As on Head Hunters (1973) and Thrust (1974), Hancock blends many different forms to yield music that resonates long after the album is off.

Another interesting crossover CD is Renee Fleming's Dark Hope. The soprano is most famous for her performances on the world's
great opera stages. But for this project, Fleming took on progressive rock compositions, many of which are unknown to older music listeners. Again, if you can get your head around the fact that the star of La Traviata is taking on Mars Volta's Twilight as My Guide, you'll find a rather peaceful but authentically angst-ridden reading of today's music. Try sampling Today, where Fleming sounds very Carly Simon in the 1970s.

Oddball album cover of the week. Recorded in Paris in 1965,
this LP by organist Lou Bennett included drummer Kenny Clarke, guitarist Rene Thomas and a crew of French jazz musicians. I'm not sure whether this cover is the deft handiwork of French or Dutch art directors, but the image leaves us hanging. Is Bennett leering, glaring or appraising? And why is the model wearing a plaid cap and looking off-camera?

June 25, 2010

The late Stanley Kay told me he was most proud of two career highlights: being hired by Buddy Rich and founding the DIVA Jazz Orchestra. Let's cover the second one first: In 1990, Stanley was conducting a band in which Sherrie Maricle was playing drums. Taken with Sherrie's playing, Stanley asked her if other female jazz players could be assembled for a big band. Sherrie said, "No problem." In 1992, Stanley founded and then managed the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, which has been playing continuously ever since. When I saw Johnny Mandel conduct the band several weeks ago at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, Stanley was there. He received a standing ovation for his efforts on behalf of the band and for his long career in music and music management.

Back to Stanley's first career highlight: When Buddy Rich decided to spend more time performing in front of his band as a dancer and singer in 1947, he hired Stanley to fill in on drums.
But this was no ordinary band. Though the personnel changed between 1946 and 1950, Rich always had amazing talent on the bandstand. For example, in 1948, the band featured Charlie Walp, Dale Pierce and Frank LoPinto (trumpets); Johnny Mandel (bass trumpet); Rob Swope, Mario Daone and Jack Carmen (trombones); Hal McKusick and Nick Sands (alto saxes); Ben Lary and Warne Marsh (tenor saxes); Harvey Lavine (baritone sax); Jerry Schwartz (piano); Terry Gibbs (vibes); Charlie Leeds (bass), with Rich and Stanley on drums. If Stanley was to survive, he needed to take charge of the band without overshadowing Rich.

In Part 2 of my two-part interview with Stanley, the late drummer and manager reflects on getting the call to join Rich's band, how he knew Rich's temper was about to kick in, how he managed Rich's outbursts and what he did once Buddy broke up the band:

JazzWax: When did you start playing professionally?Stanley Kay: In 1946, with Shorty Sherock's band. We had Nat Pierce on piano, Milt Gold on trombone and Brew Moore on tenor sax.

JW: How did you connect with Buddy Rich?SK: One day in 1947 I got a call from Carl Ritchie,
Buddy’s manager and brother-in-law. Carl said Buddy wanted me to take the train to Chicago to join the band. I asked him, “As what?” Carl explained that Buddy was expanding the act. He was doing more singing and dancing, and he needed a drummer to play when he wasn’t behind the kit.

JW: You must have been stunned.SK: I was so nervous heading out there. Man, I was going to be playing with and for my idol. When I got to
Chicago, I went up to Buddy’s suite at the Sherman Hotel. In 1947, Buddy’s orchestra was a dance band with a bunch of acts. One was “Think-a-Drink" Hoffman [pictured]. This guy named would ask people at their tables to think of a drink. When you told him what you had in mind, your glass would turn to that drink. I have no idea how he pulled that off.

JW: What did Rich say up in his suite?SK: He greeted me and told me to go down and play the first set. When I get down there and climb up on the stand, George Berg, a tenor saxophonist and the band’s straw boss, had no idea what was going on.

JW: What did he say?SK: He said, “Hey, kid, what are you crazy? What are you doing?” I said, “Subbing for Buddy.” He said, “Get off of there. You trying to steal the drum set?” After a minute he finally realized why I was there. Buddy had never told anyone he was hiring another drummer.

JW: What was the first tune?SK: They called out a number. I can’t remember which one, but not one of the killers. By the way, that’s why tunes are called “numbers.” The band knows them by number, not by name. I still remember that in Buddy’s book, #199 was More Than You Know, #175 was Dateless Brown and #125 was the Goof and I.

JW: What did Rich think of your playing?SK: After I played the first 40-minute set, Buddy came down and didn’t say anything to me. I must have been OK because he kept me on.

JW: How did Rich rehearse the band?SK: Most people didn’t know that Buddy couldn’t read a note of music. Couldn’t read one note from another.
He just had a God-given gift for rhythm and didn’t have to hear a tune twice to know what to do. From time to time he’d sit out front during rehearsals to hear me play.

JW: What did people in the band think of that?SK: At the time they thought he did that so he could hear me play the chart and then copy me, because he couldn’t read music.

JW: Was that true?SK: That was absurd. This guy was the best vaudeville player in the business. He could play anything and behind anyone. Buddy sat there because he enjoyed listening to me. When Buddy liked what I’d play, he’d say, “You sounded good.” I lived for those.

JW: Were you still a fan of Buddy’s once you were in the band?SK: I didn’t worship Buddy when I was there. It was business, and I became the band’s straw boss and creative manager. Buddy respected and trusted me because I always told him the truth. I wasn’t afraid of him. My job was to manage his personality so his talent could shine.

JW: As a drummer, what did you think?SK: Buddy’s drumming technique was spectacular. For me, Buddy’s musical sense of setting up brass figures and being daring was incomparable.

JW: Did you ever encounter Rich’s famed temper?SK: Encounter it? I often had to manage it. Buddy had a temper that would simmer and simmer and then explode. When I’d sit next to
him at New York's Paramount Theater in the late 1940s, I could tell when that pot was boiling. Buddy always liked to put his left foot on one of the three legs of the hi-hat stand. Not the pedal—one of the three metal legs. After he’d play for a little he’d move to the pedal.

JW: What was the telltale sign of trouble?SK: I knew Buddy was getting into it when his foot wasn’t on one of those legs. So I’d reach over and put his foot on the leg, which would make him laugh and settle him down.

JW: Did that always work?SK: Most of the time but not always. On some
occasions I’d get to him too late, and he’d already be yelling. I’d try to calm him down. Buddy would say, “Stan, I’ll do what I want.” I’d tell him, “Sure Buddy, but you’ll pay a consequence for it. Do you want that?” Then Buddy would calm down. My job was to tell him how it was. From my perspective, I was managing a property, like a personal manager would.

JW: Being that close to Rich must have had its rewards.SK: Oh, it did. Buddy knew I always liked to eat in great restaurants and he knew I had all the connections around town with theaters, restaurants, wholesale places for clothes and so on. If he needed access for some reason, I'd open that door for him. Doors opened for me because of the music. But I always respected people, and in turn they made life a little easier for me.

JW: You and Rich had a good working relationship.SK: We did. But Buddy would take things out on me, too. That was part of my job, I suppose. But you had to
learn to roll with that and not take it personally. And to give it back when necessary. Once we were playing with the DeCastro Sisters [pictured], Henny Youngman and Mel Torme. I’d play behind them and then Buddy would come in and take over the drums for the band part of the show.

JW: What happened?SK: When you’re working the stage, the spotlight is so hot your hands perspire. When Buddy and I made the change that night, he grabbed the sticks and they were wet with sweat.

JW: What did he do?SK: As Buddy started the tune, he lit into me. “Damn it
why are these sticks wet? What’s the matter with you?” I said: “Hey, what am I dead? It’s hot up here. Take the other sticks.”

JW: That must have been hard.SK: It was. But then I’d hear him play—this time I think it was Old Man River—and within seconds I’d forget about what he said and his tone toward me. But that night after he was through, I didn’t even want to hear it from him. When I didn’t talk to him for a day, he sent for me and asked what was wrong. I said, “Buddy, don’t talk to me like you did the other night. What are you getting on me for?”

JW: What did he say?SK: He realized he was out of bounds, he apologized and went on with it. I don’t hold grudges and nothing impresses me. Doctors impress me. That’s about it.

JW: What did you do when Rich broke up the band? SK: When he joined Jazz at the Philharmonic in 1950,
I had to get a job. I went to work with Frankie Laine, who had just started recording for Columbia Records, and I remained with him for years. [Pictured: Buddy Rich, Jo Jones and Gene Krupa in 1950]

JW: What did you do after Laine?SK: I played with Josephine Baker in the late 1950s,
then with Patti Page on all her hit records. In 1964, I quit playing. I knew how far I could go as a drummer. But I knew I could manage acts and could create things that had commercial appeal.

JW: What did you do?SK: I wound up managing the Hines Brothers dancers, singer Michele Lee and others. I also founded and managed the DIVA Jazz Orchestra.

JW: Did you feel odd playing as Rich’s drummer?SK: My time with Buddy definitely felt weird. When you’re playing drums for another guy who’s the drummer, you’re not calling your own shots. To be honest, I never liked the way I played anyway.

JW: Why not?SK: I was a perfectionist. I was respected. But I always wanted to play better than I could. I got great
experience with Buddy but I could have gotten more experience playing all the time in another band. When you play drums in Rich’s band, you’re not in control of what you want to do as a drummer. Stick? Brush? The answer was what Buddy said I had to use, not what I thought was best.

JW: So what did you do?SK: I did my thing. And I did the best I could.

June 24, 2010

Stanley Kay, Buddy Rich's drummer in the late 1940s, died on
Monday (June 21st) in New York after a long illness. He was 86. To the uninitiated, my description of Stanley's occupation in the first sentence may sound odd. Buddy Rich's drummer? Buddy Rich was a drummer. Except that Stanley played drums when Buddy Rich sang and danced, which was often in the late 1940s. Stanley was one of Rich's most trusted associates during this period. Rich had grown up and performed with Stanley's sister when they both were child stage stars. [Photo of Stanley Kay in Buddy Rich's band in the late 1940s, courtesy of The Note]

To have known Stanley was to have known a piece of Old New York. Just the sound of Stanley's voice transported you back to
a time when cabs in Manhattan had
metal flags on their meters, automats served oval plates of hot dogs and beans,
and the jazz culture was reflected in everything, from the cut of a suit's lapels to the
fuzzy glow of winking neon signs. Stanley was a big band drummer of the first
order, but he also was a Runyonesque publicist who knew how to win over the most jaded writers and reporters.

When I interviewed Stanley in January 2008, Stanley spoke
candidly of Rich, Frank Sinatra and other jazz artists from the 1940s. But after our conversation, Stanley called and asked if I would hold the post. "I don't feel completely comfortable with everything I told you," Stanley said. "You can use it. I'd just prefer that you wait, if you know what I mean."

In Part 1 of my two-part conversation with Stanley, the big band drummer and Buddy Rich confidante talks about growing up in New York, recommending Rich to Artie Shaw, and Rich's early relationship with Frank Sinatra:

JazzWax: Where in New York were you born?Stanley Kay: On the Lower East Side, in March 1924. Back then, everyone in the neighborhood was poor but everyone loved each other. The streets were
tough and there were plenty of gangsters around—Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel [pictured] and others. I minded my own business as a kid, but what I saw and learned was the importance of respect. The tough guys were nice to average people on the street, tipping their hats to women. Being respected and respectful was very important—a lesson that stayed with me.

JW: Do you have brothers and sisters?SK: An older sister, Sybil. She was a child star when she was 6 years old. She could sing, dance, act—like
Judy Garland. In fact, Judy Garland’s accompanist originally was her accompanist and wanted Sybil to go out to California. But she didn’t. By the time my sister was 12, she was playing the Riviera and Capitol Theaters in New York. [Sybil survives Stanley]

JW: Did you see your sister perform?SK: When I was 6 years old, my parents started taking me to see her. The orchestra was always in the pit then. For some reason I would look down at the drummer and get fascinated by what he was doing. When I’d get home I’d try to emulate what he did with forks and knives on pots and pans.

JW: Were you listening to music?SK: All the time. I started listening to the radio and records, constantly drumming on stuff. When that was
too loud I’d beat my hands on pillows. I was obsessed with drumming, and I loved drummers. I was self-taught, although later, when I was 13, I took lessons for about a year and could read music.

JW: Who was your favorite?SK: At first I was crazy
about Gene Krupa. For me, he was the best when I was a kid. But one day, in 1938, when I was 14 years old, Sybil told me there was a better drummer than Krupa—a guy named Buddy Rich. She said I should go see him for myself.

JW: How did your sister know Rich?SK: She had known Buddy since they were 6 years old. Buddy grew up in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, and Buddy and my sister had performed together as child stars in revues.

JW: When you first went to see Rich, who was he playing with?SK: Buddy was playing in a Dixieland band with clarinetist Joe Marsala at the Hickory House on 52d
Street. My sister told Buddy I’d be coming by. Each Sunday the club had jam sessions in the afternoon. The stage was inside a big round bar, with the bartenders working around the rim. When I got to the Hickory House that Sunday afternoon, I introduced myself to Buddy. He knew I was coming. He was very nice to me.

JW: How so?SK: He got me a place to sit, and I had a Coke. All the
guys who played in bands then—Eddie Mallory, Tiny Bradshaw and others—would sit in and jam. The jam session that day lasted from 3 to 6 p.m. As the session was winding down, Buddy still hadn’t played. I was disappointed. But at about 5:50, Buddy climbed up and played Jim-Jam Stomp.

JW: How did he sound?SK: Like jet planes taking off. It was that fast. I said to myself that Sybil was right. The guy was better than Gene. I idolized Buddy after that.

JW: You read all of the music fan magazines?SK: Absolutely. And the music trade publications. When Buddy joined Bunny Berigan in the late summer
of 1938, I went to see him. When he left Bunny in fall, I read in one of the trades that Artie Shaw was looking for a drummer because Cliff Leeman was leaving.

JW: Did you get word to Shaw?SK: Better. I knew that Artie was playing at the Lincoln Hotel on 45th St. I also knew you could go upstairs where the lounge was, and when they opened the door, you could look down and hear the band play. There also was an area where you could see the musicians go into the alley on a break.

JW: What did you do?SK: When I saw Artie come out, he was in a good
mood. So I said, “Mr. Shaw, excuse me, I heard you’re looking for a drummer. I know the greatest drummer in the world.” “Who would that be,” he asked me. “Buddy Rich,” I said. “Oh, he can’t play,” Artie said, waving me off.

JW: How did you feel?SK: Terrible. But it turned out Artie was putting me on. He had already hired Buddy. A week later Buddy joined Artie’s band. Tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld must have gotten him into the band. For years, though, I thought I had gotten Buddy that job [laughs]. Buddy never told me what had happened and it was a longstanding joke between us.

JW: What was next for Rich?SK: In late 1939, Tommy Dorsey called Buddy and asked him to join his band. Buddy was in Chicago at
the time playing with Artie. Buddy initially told Tommy he wasn’t interested. He knew Tommy often featured his Clambake Seven, a Dixieland group. Buddy wasn’t interested in that type of music and told Tommy that.

JW: What changed Rich’s mind?SK: Tommy told Buddy he had just brought in Sy Oliver to arrange. Right off the bat Buddy said to count him in. He joined Tommy in late 1939.

JW: Did you see Rich with Dorsey’s band?SK: Every chance I’d get. Tommy’s sound on the
trombone was absolutely exquisite. We forget that today. Back then, most trombonists warmed up with scales. Not Tommy. He could come into the Paramount Theater with a hangover, pick up the trombone and play like glass.

JW: Rich and Frank Sinatra, Dorsey’s vocalist from 1940 to 1942, had their differences, didn’t they?SK: There’s been much talk about how Buddy and Frank didn’t get along when they were both in Tommy’s band. They had their moments, but talent-wise they loved each other.

JW: How did their differences start?SK: Buddy told me the friction started when they
roomed together in 1940. Frank used to get up at 2 a.m. and clip his toenails. The clicking sound would wake Buddy up, and they’d have a terrible row.

JW: There was a moment with a pitcher, yes?SK: The famous pitcher-throwing incident happened in the ballroom atop the Astor Hotel in Times Square.
When Buddy got moody, he could play louder than 20 field drummers. Frank had a fast temper. Both of them could go a little berserk over stuff most people would view as nothing. Ultimately, they were very, very sensitive geniuses. [Photo: Frank Sinatra, Buddy Rich and Tommy Dorsey in the early 1940s]

JW: So what happened?SK: At the Astor, Buddy was in one of his moods and playing too loud while Frank was singing. They had
words after the song. Then Frank grabbed a glass pitcher and threw it at Buddy. So they both stepped outside the ballroom. When Buddy came back he had a black eye.

JW: No hard feelings?SK: Their battles had nothing to do with what they thought about each other.
In 1946, when Buddy came out of the Marines, I was in Toots Shor’s bar with Frank and Buddy. I heard Frank tell Buddy, “Start a band. I’ll back it, and you’ll be so busy you’ll be begging to get days off.” So Buddy did, and Frank did what he had promised Buddy.

JW: So their scraps were just a result of creative heat?SK: Their friction was just about art and business. They loved each other. When Buddy was ill in the last
years of his life, Frank was the first guy there to settle his bills and look in on him. [Pictured: Buddy Rich and Frank Sinatra]

JW: When did Buddy first hear you play drums?SK: When I was 14. I was playing like a maniac along to records at my house. When my sister brought Buddy by, he told her, “He can’t play. He’ll never make it.” I almost cried [laughing].

Tomorrow, Stanley on joining Buddy Rich's band, how Stanley could tell that when Buddy's temper would flare just by the placement of one of his feet, the day Stanley passed Buddy a pair of sweaty sticks, and having to find a new job in 1950 after Buddy broke up his band.

JazzWax clip:This may be the only surviving clip of Stanley Kay playing drums in the Buddy Rich band. It's a short for Universal made in 1948, while the band was on the West Coast...

June 23, 2010

Between mid-1955 and the start of 1957, Lou Donaldson did
not record for reasons he outlines below. Instead, he booked a long string of urban clubs across the country and toured them back and forth while fronting a quintet that included organist Big John Patton. Along the way, Lou became creatively comfortable with the sax-organ sound, in which he borrowed elements from r&b and bebop. When he returned to Blue Note in
1957, Lou recorded with organist JImmy Smith in 1958 (The Sermon and Cool Blues). From 1961 onward, Lou was almost always recorded backed by a series of great jazz organists.

Among the earliest examples of this sound between 1961 and
1963 were Here 'Tis with organist Baby Face Willette, Man With a Horn featuring Brother Jack McDuff, and The Natural Soul, Good Gracious!, Signifyin' and Possum Head with Big John Patton. Then came Dr. Lonnie Smith, Charles Earland and Leon Spencer. With each album, the sound grew progressively reliant on inventive hooks, groovy hooks and a strong hip beat.

In Part 3 of my interview with Lou, the alto saxophonist talks about why he didn't record for a year and a half in the mid-1950s, the rise of the sax-organ sound, and why what he played in the 1960s was funky—but not technically funk:

JazzWax: You helped invent hard bop, yet you’re not on many of the big hard-bop recordings. Why not?Lou Donaldson: I got pissed off at the musicians coming to the dates. The drug thing was bad then. A
lot of musicians would come into Blue Note’s offices and owner Alfred Lion [pictured] would take them back to his room. When they came out, they’d sober up. I said to Alfred, “I’m not going to make any more dates with these junkies you bring in here. They want to get high and come back and mess up a record.”

JW: What did you do instead?LD: I traveled quite a bit on the road. So Alfred got Hank Mobley and just continued the hard bop sound
but with a tenor player. I had my own tour, hitting dozens of clubs from New York to California. I just kept working my tour. But I still loved Blue Note. By my count, I brought 58 musicians to the label. I was like Alfred’s scout [laughs].

JW: Who did you tour with?LD: Bill Hardman on trumpet, John Patton on organ, Grant Green on guitar and Ben Dixon on drums.

JW: No bass player?LD: Big John used his feet on the bass pedals of the organ.

JW: How did audiences react?LD: We played 25 clubs that had never featured jazz
before. They went crazy. But Grant Green was a problem, as good as he was.

JW: Why?LD: He had to have his stuff with him on the road. If they had pulled us over and found his drugs, we could all get hit with a $10,000 fine and we might do time if we crossed state lines. Grant was a liability, for a touring band.

JW: What set you apart from everyone else during that period?LD: I wasn’t a junkie. And the sound on my horn was a little better than most other guys. I always prided myself on my tone.

JW: What was the thinking behind your tone?LD: I knew the sound I produced had to project since I
played at so many clubs. I developed that tone because as an asthmatic, I’d do a lot of hold and sustain songs to build up my strength. That’s what saved me.

JW: Wasn’t playing the saxophone only raising the risk of an asthmatic episode?LD: Many people thought that blowing the horn would make my asthma worse. But doing so actually eased the condition.

JW: In 1957, you recorded a blockbuster album with Donald Byrd, Curtis Fuller, Sonny Clark and others, called Lou Takes Off.LD: Oh, yeah. That was a good one, you're right about that. It was one of the first recordings where I had an extended band on a Blue Note album.
Most of the time I recorded in a quartet setting. Back then there were so many great musicians around New York. They all could play good, and each one played a little different than the other. Everyone had individual styles and sounds.

JW: Were hard bop musicians in competition with the West Coast scene?LD: Our thing was the opposite of jazz on the West Coast. We consciously tried to do everything that they
didn’t do. We tried to swing hard, not cool. They had a light touch to their music. We had a heavy touch, with a swinging feel underneath. We knew that creating a contrast was going to be the only way to stand out.

JW: You never played with Miles Davis?LD: No. Miles wouldn’t pay musicians their money, and he’d always have his junkies with him. I wasn’t in that category, so I never worked with him nor did I want to.

JW: So not being a junkie put you outside the inner circle?LD: Yes. Musicians who were junkies tended to hire only people who were using.

JW: Why?LD: So after the gig the leader could push the others to pool their earnings and buy stuff. Not being called to
work with them didn’t bother me. I knew that on most of those jobs, the sidemen didn’t get paid what they should have anyway. I had a wife and a family by the mid-1950s and couldn’t afford that kind of scene as a sober guy.

JW: How did this position you an outsider?LD: The junkie musicians were afraid of me. On gigs they'd eventually realize they had come up short with their money and they’d think I was scheming. I used to remind them that they were the ones getting high and I was sober and what would happen to them eventually if they kept using.

JW: I would imagine it was hard to trust them, too.LD: That’s correct. Those guys were street smart. They could spot a policeman 1,000 miles away. Then they might stick their stuff in your case, getting you in a jam. You had to be very careful around them. I had to watch myself and keep my distance.

JW: How did you come to invent the organ-sax groove sound?LD: The blues groove is where I’m from. I was playing whatever music
people liked, but with my sound. I used audience reaction as a barometer for what I would go into the studio and record. We’d try out songs on audiences on the road. If they responded big to songs, we’d record them. Every one of those records in the 1960s sold well [laughs].

JW: So the sax-organ sound started on the road.LD: Yes, while we were traveling cross-country. Jimmy Smith was the one who refined the jazz-organ sound. But he didn’t do the circuit. We played ghetto clubs. Jimmy played high-paying jobs.

JW: You recorded a few albums with Jimmy Smith. LD: I told Jimmy I’d make him famous with The
Sermon [laughs]. Jimmy was a great piano player as well as a great organist. What set Jimmy apart is that he discovered stops on the organ and setups that a lot of organists didn’t know. He made the Hammond sound like a piano. But with Jimmy, the groove was always there.

JW: So is the sound you eventually created called funk?LD: No. What we did with the sax-organ thing was what I call “swinging bebop.” That’s what makes it
different. The groove was so strong. Funk is James Brown and Earth, Wind and Fire, and I’m not about either one.

JW: How did you come up with specific grooves and riffs?LD: I’d work out the song in advance with the organist, whether it was Lonnie [Smith], Charles Earland, Leon Spencer or whoever. There was no real mystery to those records. We made them the way we wanted to make them—which was to sell them [laughs].

JW: But the formula was fairly consistent—mostly groovy riffs with a kicky beat, and a standard or two. LD: I’d be playing all the time in clubs. I’d use riffs on different chord sequences
and remember the ones I liked. One of my best albums was called The Scorpion, which was recorded live at the Cadillac Club in Newark, N.J. in 1970. That was with Fred Ballard on trumpet and Leon Spencer on organ. It has a great sound.JW: Of all your albums, which is your favorite?LD: Probably Blues Walk. I love the groove on there. But Alligator Bogaloo made me the most money [laughs].

JW: How did Alligator Bogaloo get its name?LD: It was my title. I’m a golfer and had been playing
down in Florida. One day I hit my ball and it went in a ditch. I started to go in to get it and the caddy stopped me and said, “Don’t do that.” Then he told me why. When I stuck my club down in the ditch with all the foliage, an alligator lifted up his head [laughs]. I liked the way the word "alligator" sounded with "bogaloo," which was a new hot dance then.

JW: Looking back on your career, would you have done anything different?LD: I doubt it. Every move I made was exactly the one I should have made. That’s why I’m still here today. I always made the right decision.

JazzWax tracks: Before we move on to the sax-organ sound, there are a bunch of terrific Lou Donaldson albums you need to know about. The Time Is Right (1959) and Sunny Side Up (1960) feature astonishing piano work by
Horace Parlan. Also fantastic is LD + 3, which features Lou with The Three Sounds—Gene Harris (piano), Andy Simpkins (bass) and Bill Dowdy (drums). You'll find these here, here and here.

There are simply too many Lou Donaldson sax-organ sessions
to list. Instead, let me provide you with a clutch of my favorites:

Good Gracious! (1963)

Alligator Bogaloo (1967)

Midnight Caper (1968)

Say It Loud! (1968)

Cosmos (1971)

If you want a superb compilation of the Lou Donaldson sound
in the 1960s, download Blue Breakbeats at iTunes or here. It's a punchy, hip roundup of Lou's grooviest tunes. And all have been remastered.

June 22, 2010

Jazz writers aren't in complete agreement about the first
hard-bop recording. Many point to Miles Davis' Walkin', recorded in April 1954. Others choose recordings from slightly later. I'd have to say that the first hard-bop date—where the trumpet and saxophone operate in unison with an r&b feel,
backed by big steady, swinging beat—would have to be a Blue Note session of June 9, 1953. On this date, Lou Donaldson co-led a group that featured Clifford Brown, pianist Elmo Hope, bassist Percy Heath and drummer Philly Joe Jones. [Photo by Francis Wolff]

The first track recorded that day was Hope's Bellarosa, a hard-bop anthem if ever there was one. Today, this session can be found on a CD called The Clifford Brown Memorial Album, and it still sizzles
with a singular freshness. Which brings me to my next point: For too long, Lou has been categorized as an r&b or funk player. Both grossly underestimate Lou's significance and the deep scope of his playing and ideas. Lou is a hard-bop Founding Father, which means he forged the foot-tapping qualities of r&b while retaining the daring and ferocity of bebop. And Lou is still on the scene today! [Photo of Clifford Brown and Lou Donaldson at the June 1953 Blue Note session, by Francis Wolff]

In Part 2 of my three-part interview with Lou, the alto saxophonist talks about moving to New York in 1950, playing clubs and starting hard bop with Clifford Brown:

JazzWax: How did you wind up in New York in 1950?Lou Donaldson: I had played semi-pro baseball in
North Carolina for two years after I returned from the Navy. I played third base for the Badin Tigers. I thought I was the best third baseman in the world, and I wasn't too far off. I was hitting over .400. Then one day I picked up a ground ball barehanded and hurt my pinky. Those fields we played on had more rocks than soil.

JW: What did you do?LD: I stopped playing ball. Then Illinois Jacquet came through town with his band. I had learned Jacquet’s Flying Home on my alto saxophone, so I went up on stage and played it with him. After I finished, he said, “Man, you should be in New York.” My girlfriend, Maker Turner, had already left for New York to work in a wealthy person’s home. I followed her to New York in 1950 and soon afterward married her. We were married for 56 years before she passed away in 2006. We lived in Harlem, on Sugar Hill.

JW: What was happening in New York in 1950?LD: A lot. There were clubs on every block. I attended the Darrow Institute of Music on the GI Bill and I lived with my brother-in-law for a while, which meant I didn’t have to pay rent and could save. Soon I moved in with Maker. But I didn’t have time to finish with school. I was too busy with gigs. When I first came to New York, they said I had to learn to play tenor. They said that in the clubs, all the hot musicians play tenor.

JW: Why?LD: Audiences didn’t like the alto sound as much.

JW: What did you do?LD: I went around to about 15 or 16 clubs in Harlem and worked them all on alto. What I figured out is that
most of the guys then couldn’t play the melody to songs. They could riff on the blues and things they knew but they didn’t have a deep song vocabulary. Fortunately, I did. Also I was always clean. I’m an asthmatic so I never smoked, did drugs or drank. [Photo of model Charlotte Stibling waiting backstage in 1950 at a Harlem fashion show, by Eve Arnold]

JW: In 1953, you recorded the first hard bop recording with Clifford Brown and Elmo Hope.LD: Clifford was amazing. He could play a strong
trumpet. Other trumpeters would play three sets a night, but by the third set, they couldn’t play anything. Their lips were gone. This happened to Miles, Kenny Dorham and Joe Gordon. Not Clifford. He could play the last set as good as the first. [Photo of Lou Donaldson, Clifford Brown and Elmo Hope at the June 1953 Blue Note session, by Francis Wolff]

JW: In February 1954, you’re with Art Blakey and Clifford Brown on A Night at Birdland.LD: That was probably the greatest live jazz
recording ever made. But it wasn't a Jazz Messengers date nor was Art the leader. Art
already had a band in Brooklyn
that he called the Jazz Messengers. The quintet we had a Birdland was a studio band that Blue Note put together. It wasn't Blakey's. It was just a recording band.

JW: How did Blakey become the leader?LD: Art owed a lot of money to someone. Blue Note made it his date so he could get more money as the leader and pay off his debt. It was just a blowing session. We didn’t have a lot of time together and it was all new music, much of it written by me and Horace Silver.

JW: What made that band and hard bop in general sound different?LD: The blues sound. We wanted to keep the blues
sound firmly in the band. R&B was coming on strong, and the blues had to be a part of what we were doing so the music would stand out. Blues gives jazz its identity anyway, so it wasn’t too foreign.

JW: Was there anything borrowed from old-fashioned bebop?LD: Oh sure. Charlie Parker was one of the greatest blues musicians who ever lived. We just played what he played—but with more conventional, standardized music. We also were swinging more.

JW: What about the hard-bop rhythm?LD: Our rhythm was more definite than bebop's.
The bebop drummers were always trying things, adding this and that. What many people don’t realize is that Art Blakey wasn’t actually a bebop drummer in the purest sense.JW: How so?LD: He was first and foremost about a strong beat and a strong rhythm. He was a swing drummer. Enormous rhythm.

JW: What's the big difference?LD: The effect or impact was different. Art’s style, and
the style of all good hard-bop drummers then, is that his sound would project out more to the people listening. The hard-bop drummer was less about nuances and more about a big, driving beat. [Photo of Art Blakey by Herman Leonard/CTSImages.com]

JW: What was it like playing with Horace Silver?LD: Amazing. Horace was originally a sax player and
started piano late. Hard to believe, right? He had trouble with his back and couldn’t hold up the instrument for long periods. We used to rehearse together all the time. On the keyboard, he was a piano player and a bass player and a drummer all at once, that's how good he was back then.

JW: The Birdland recordings sound like everyone was having a lot of fun during that run.LD: I would have played those jobs for no money. It was nice and free and light what we were doing. Most of the time we’d be playing and just thinking of what to do with the song’s melody line.

JW: What makes up a great group?LD: Musicians have to play together for a couple of
weeks in clubs so each one knows exactly what the others are going to do. You sense what each musician is going to do and the result is this perfect sound. Unfortunately today you don’t have those kind of clubs where musicians stay together for extended periods. [Photo, from left, of Lou Donaldson, Horace Silver, Clifford Brown, Art Blakey and Curly Russell at Birdland in February 1954 by Francis Wolff]

JW: You toured the country and played clubs quite a bit in the mid-1950s.LD: I was working steady during this period, playing
many clubs in urban markets across the country, so I didn’t make many records during this period. Whenever I was in New York, I was the house saxophonist up at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem. It was a fantastic, experimental period. [Photo, from left, of Clifford Brown, Curley Russell, Lou Donaldson and Art Blakey at Birdland in February 1954 by Francis Wolff]

Tomorrow, Lou talks further about why he didn't record much in the mid-1950s, his sax-organ period starting in 1957, and how one of his most popular albums, Alligator Bogaloo, got its name.

JazzWax tracks: Lou's early 1950s recording period is especially
rich. His first leadership date was in June 1952, with Horace Silver, Gene Ramey and Art Taylor. These recordings, his dates with Blue Mitchell from the same year, and a session from 1954 with trumpeter Kenny Dorham and trombonist Matthew Gee are on Quartet, Quintet, Sextet (Blue Note), which is only available as an import. But fortunately, all of these sides can be found at iTunes on Lou Donaldson: Ultimate Jazz Archive No. 31.

Lou with Clifford Brown in 1953 can be found on The Clifford Brown Memorial Album (Blue Note) at iTunes or here.

A Night at Birdland in February 1954 is indeed one of the most exciting live dates ever recorded. The fire and energy virtually leap out of the speakers. The recording can be found on two Blue Note CDs at iTunes or here and here.

Lou recorded three exceptional hard
bop albums in 1957 after spending three years on the road. They are Wailing with Lou (with Donald Byrd and Herman Foster), Swing and Soul
(also with Herman Foster) and Lou Takes Off (with Donald Byrd and Curtis Fuller), which is exceptional. All are must-owns. They can be found here, here and here.

JazzWax clip: Here's what I believe is the first hard-bop recording, from June 1953. It's Elmo Hope's Bellarosa, featuring Clifford Brown and Lou Donaldson. Dig Lou swing in and out of the chord changes with force and confidence...

June 21, 2010

Lou Donaldson helped invent two major jazz movements. In
1952, he led a Blue Note recording that became one of the earliest hard bop sessions. The date included Blue Mitchell, Horace Silver, Percy Heath and Art Blakey. Seven months later he recorded with trumpeter Clifford Brown. Then in 1957, Lou began recording a series of albums with organist Jimmy Smith that popularized the sax and organ trio sound. Throughout the 1960s, Lou's merging of the hard
bop feel and r&b groove resulted in a long string of successful albums for Blue Note that were built on catchy sax-organ riffs. The formula revived jazz as popular music in the country's vast network of urban clubs and bars, and the sound remains the major bridge between jazz and soul.

Today Lou is still going strong and playing to sold-out crowds in the U.S. and abroad. Yesterday, Lou told me about fans'
exuberant reaction to him during a recent trip to the Netherlands. Lou went on to say that he experienced the same crowd excitement in San Francisco last week. Which makes perfect sense: Only a handful of artists who graced the covers of Blue Note albums in the 1950s are still on the scene today.

In Part 1 of my three-part interview with Lou, 83, the Charlie Parker-influenced alto saxophonist talks about North Carolina, learning to play the clarinet, graduating early from high school, attending college at age 15, joining the Navy and taking up the saxophone:

JazzWax: You grew up in Badin, N.C. What was that like?Lou Donaldson: It was alright. Segregation was a drag, and there wasn’t any jazz on the radio down there, just country and western music. Eventually, my family had a shortwave radio that could pick up the New York stations and the big bands led by people like Benny Goodman, Harry James and Xavier Cugat, and sometimes Duke Ellington and Count Basie from the Cotton Club.

JW: Where is Badin?LD: Toward the center of North Carolina, about an hour south of Greensboro. I went to school in Greensboro, which is where the bands played that came
through the state, in the city's dance halls. I saw Buddy Johnson, Erskine Hawkins, Andy Kirk, Lionel Hampton, Jay McShann—all of them. Every so often the Basie band came through, and Duke played there once. All the originals were in Duke's band at the time, like Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney and Jimmy Hamilton.

JW: Did you meet the Ellington band?LD: Later, when I was in college. They came by the Mombassie Club where I was playing in Greensboro and complimented me when I was done. That was exciting.

JW: Did you start playing the alto sax right away?LD: I started on the clarinet when I was 9 or 10 years
old. There was an Alcoa Aluminum plant in my hometown and the company had a band, which, of course, was all white. My mother went over to the bandleader and spoke to him. I have no idea what my mother said but he gave her a clarinet to give to me.

JW: Did your mother know him or have any connection to the plant?LD: From time to time the Alcoa band would have some tough music to play. They’d call my mother, who could play anything on the piano. She was a music teacher
in town. When her students missed notes, she’d have a switch to encourage them to make the notes the next time [laughs]. That’s why I was the only one in my family who didn’t play piano. I didn’t want to get whacked with that switch [laughs].

JW: Did you have a large family?LD: Two sisters and one brother. I’m the second
oldest. They were excellent pianists. I studied hard and finished high school early, starting college at age 15. I was the valedictorian of my high school class. I also was an All-State baseball player. But back then, if you were black, you couldn’t play professional baseball. You couldn’t even go in the ballpark. We had to peep thorough the holes in the fence.

JW: Where did you go to college? LD: I was admitted to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro. At the time, they didn’t have a music degree or a band. I was there for two years and then joined the Navy in 1944.

JW: You were in a Navy band with Willie Smith, Clark Terry and Ernie Wilkins?LD: And Major Holley, Jimmy Nottingham, Wendell Culley and Luther Henderson. We were all at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station near Chicago. That band was a
great education for me. I didn’t take any lessons. When I went up there, they gave us these intelligence tests. Naturally having been in college, I could do all the math. So at first they assigned me to the radar school—where I became the first black specialist. Before that, blacks at Great Lakes were bakers, stewards and cooks. [Photo of an African-American swing band at Great Lakes Naval Training Station in 1943]

JW: Did you stick with radar?LD: I loved it. I was beginning to go to radar school. Then one day I passed by the base’s band room and heard a clarinet squeaking. I stuck my head in to see who was making the noise.

JW: What did you see?LD: The bandmaster was giving a guy a lesson. The guy was playing Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite, a
march. So I went in. Eventually the bandmaster saw me and asked if I could play. I told him I could. He gave me a clarinet, put music up on the stand and asked me to read it. I did. He put up another song. I read that down, too. No matter what he put up, I played it flawlessly. [Photo of pianist Hazel Scott signing autographs at Great Lakes Naval Training Station in 1943]

JW: What did the bandmaster say?LD: He said, “You are the best clarinet player I’ve heard around here. Do you want to join the band? Do
you play the saxophone, too?” I had never touched the saxophone up to that point. I said I’d love to join the band and would be happy to play the saxophone. So he issued me an alto sax and clarinet.

JW: What did you do with the sax?LD: I took it to the barracks. Two weeks later I knew the instrument cold and joined the band.

JW: Why didn't you audition for the band from the start? LD: When I joined the Navy and reached Great Lakes, I had been placed in a pool of 200 sailors.
Many of those guys had brought their horns with them and said they had played with Count Basie and Duke Ellington. So I never bothered to take the band test. I was too intimidated by them. It turned out many of them had, shall we say, exaggerated their experiences [laughs]. [Pictured: Main gate to Great Lakes Naval Training Station]

JW: Was there one big band at the base?LD: No, at Great Lakes you had an "A" band, a "B" band and a "C" band. I wound up initially in the C band,
which was made up of young guys. The musicians in the different bands used to get together and hold jam sessions. I'd sit in and learn stuff. That’s where I met Clark Terry. [Pictured: Graduates congratulate each other at Great Lakes Naval Training Station]

JW: How long were you in the Navy?LD: For 11 months. I joined in 1944, the war ended in the summer of 1945, and I was discharged in September.

JW: What did you do when you got out? LD: I went back to college. Then I heard Charlie Parker and my whole approach to the
saxophone changed. I got what he was doing instantly. I had seen him a few years earlier in Chicago, when I was on leave, when he was with Billy Eckstine’s band. Parker was so messed up he could hardly play anything. The suit he wore looked like he had been wearing it for six months. At first I thought he was a bum [laughs]. Then someone told me he was the guy I liked so much on the Jay McShann records [laughs]. [Pictured: Billy Eckstine and Charlie Parker]

JW: Which early record of Parker's did you listen to most at the time?LD: I still remember it: The Jumpin' Blues with Jay McShann in 1942, which had Sepian Stomp on the other
side. I played that record until you could see the aluminum in the disc [laughs]. Parker was the only one playing that way even then, and all of us were trying to figure out what he was doing.

Tomorrow,Lou talks about returning home to North Carolina after being discharged from the service, moving to New York in 1950, playing with Horace Silver and Clifford Brown and why Art Blakey isn't technically a bebop drummer.

JazzWax tracks: The Charlie Parker-Jay McShann tracks Lou
Donaldson referred to above can be found on Jay McShann and His Orchestra: 1941-43 (French Classics) here.

June 20, 2010

Just wanted to let you know that you can follow me on Twitter
or "friend" me at Facebook. What does this mean? For those who hear these phrases all the time but haven't a clue as to what they mean because no one bothers to explain them, let me fill you in:

Twitter is what's known as a social networking site. You go here and create a free account. Then you can make comments and
post them. People who are interested in what you have to say will follow your comments. You also can follow the comments of people who interest you. Twitter allows you to use only 140 characters per message, which isn't much. Hence, you have to get to the point fast.

Some people "tweet" all day—meaning they are constantly posting Twitter messages about what they think at any given moment, what they are seeing or hearing, where they are traveling and what they are doing. I, for one, hold my comments to one or two a day. I think that's all that most people can bear.

Facebook is a little more involved. Like Twitter, you go to the
Facebook site here to set up a free account. Then you can write things on your private Facebook page, allow only the people you choose to have access to your page. You also can request access to other people's
Facebook pages. This is the electronic equivalent of knocking on someone's door. If the person lets you in, you can read what they have to say and make comments on their page. Here again, I limit comments on my page to one or two a day.

Facebook and Twitter are two ways to express yourself for free on the web, get
information about you out there, share your taste, and build a circle of online followers and friends who have similar interests. [Photo by Helen Levitt]

At Twitter you'll find me by typing in "JazzWax." At Facebook, you'll find me by typing in "Marc JazzWax Myers." Be sure to say hi.

Joao Gilberto, live! I'm looking forward to seeing Brazilian legend Joao Gilberto perform Tuesday night at Carnegie Hall
as part of George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Festival New York. Gilberto is old school: a chair, an acoustic guitar and a microphone—just like in the Rio clubs of the late 1950s. No shooting flames or showgirls on swings. Just hushed singing. Tickets are still available here.

Sarah Vaughan. Back when CBS mattered, pianist Billy Taylor
regularly hosted a taped segment on the network's weekly Sunday Morning show that gave you intimate access to different jazz legends.

Over the coming weeks, in advance of Billy's 89th birthday on July 24th, video documentarian Bret Primack will be posting on Billy's site a different Sunday Morning segment that Billy narrated and appeared in. Billy produced more than 250 of the Sunday Morning shows between 1981 and 2000.

This week's installment is on Sarah Vaughan. You watch this
powerful segment from July 1983 and realize how far television today has slipped over the years as an educational and enlightenment tool.

More Jazz Journalists Association awards. So you've watched all of your Netflix orders this weekend and there's nothing much on TV tonight but repeats? You can watch last Monday's Jazz Journalists Association awards ceremony in its entirety—including performances by pianist Ayako Shirasaki and others—here.

CD discovery of the week. Denny Zeitlin is demanding, in a
glorious way. He approaches the piano as an Impressionist, letting his heart and soul dictate what he does with standards and original compositions. Sometimes the journey can take a bit of time. But that journey is always an adventure with Denny. He's like the kid at the beach who's furiously working with a shovel. If you spend time watching what's going on, you realize that the kid is assembling one seriously amazing sand castle.

Denny constructs quite a few of these sand castles on Precipice, his latest CD. Recorded at Ralston Hall in Santa
Barbara, CA, in 2008, the album opens with a suite of Free Prelude, What Is This Thing Called Love? and Fifth House. The piece runs just over 12 minutes, and there's enormous energy throughout. Rodgers and Hammerstein's ballad Out of My Dreams follows, as do a range of standards and originals.

The high points for me are Wayne Shorter's Deluge, originally recorded by Shorter on JuJu, and Denny's own Love Theme From Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Denny probes Deluge, inspects the chord changes, rotates the melody and probes again, never loosing his grip on the melody. Body Snatchers opens with a strum of the piano strings and slips instantly into the composition's shapely melody line.

Oddball album cover of the week. Back when the word
"party" came with an "a" in front of it, Decca released this one in the mid-1950s featuring a George Petty pinup illustration on behalf of Esquire magazine. The tag line at the top says, "Music for the Girl Friend." Which is all quite exciting. Just to be sure, for this hot party, the recommended music of choice is by the guy with the clarinet, right?

About

Marc Myers writes on music and the arts for The Wall Street Journal. He is author of "Why Jazz Happened" (Univ. of Calif. Press). Founded in 2007, JazzWax was named the 2015 "Blog of the Year" by the Jazz Journalists Association.